HELP!

[Julianciraco]

hey guys.
okay so I've had my tank since about beginning of january, and i had it cycle, added fishes, plants etc, just as supposed to, but the past week this brown hairy looking algae literally burst ALL over my plants, every single one of them, since i have no time to do water changes during the week cause of school and work I didnt notice it, but today that i started doing my water change i was pretty stunned by how much of this ugly **** i have all over my tank, so i grabbed my vaccumm to do water changes and i started sucking it out as much as i can, but unfortunately theres too much and i have no idea what to do. my tank is a 29G, i have an LED fixture i built myself putting enough power for high light plants, in the tank i have: java fern, lazy fern, dwarf hairgrass, flame moss, Fox tail (idk the actual name of it but its growing like crazy) some purple cabomba, some red melon sword and a few more that idk their names yet. the water parameters are Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate usually 10-20, but today it was at 0. i have DIY yeast and sugar co2 with a ceramic diffuser, the filter is a marineland C-160 canister filter. I dose excel potassium liquid whatever 2 times a week, even though it says i should 3 times a week but i forget sometimes lol, also the excel iron fertilizer, ( i already had them from someone so i dont do dry ferts until the bottles run out). if you guys could help me out i would really appreciate it, ill try to take a picture once the water stops being cloudy.

 

[calfishguy]

Sounds like a bad case of diatoms to me. They should go away in their own.

 

[Julianciraco]

so i just dont worry about it? thank you for the reply!

 

[calfishguy]

so i just dont worry about it? thank you for the reply!

Post a pic that way we can for sure see that they are diatoms.

 

[sam24]

Probably diatoms. how is your tap water where you live? you could also leave the lights off for a day then shorten the amount of time on during the day until u see results

 

[Rivercats]

Can you easily wipe the brown algae off? If so it is most likely diatoms since the tank is new but you said it's hairy and diatom algae isn't hairy so a picture would help alot. Diatoms will go away on their own but you can help the tank/plants by only running your lights 6 hours a day. I have very high light and can only run them 6 hours daily otherwise I begin to have algae issues. Also using DIY CO2 means your levels could be fluxuating which can cause algae issue. If you run 2 bottles but stagger their starting times by a week or two you can stablilize your CO2 levels better. Anyway back to the diatoms.... limit your lighting and if needed you can always get a couple nerite snails as they love diatoms and can't reproduce in freshwater. Too much of a diatom buildup on plants leaves can be detrimental to the health of the plant.

 

[Julianciraco]

Hey everyone, i didnt get home last night until it was too late to take pictures, but i woke up this morning and i took some that HOPEFULLY will help.

Rivercats: its easily wiped off, just by agitating the water close to the plant it will come off the plant and start floating, but theres so much i cant get it all out. either way, i hope this pictures help on finding what it is. if theres anything else needed please ask me im willing to do anything until i figure whats this thing.
thank you very much.

 

[Rivercats]

That doesn't look right for diatoms. Diatoms actually grow on the surface of leaves and such and you have to rub it off, you can't just wave your hand over it and it floats off. It almost looks more like a build up of detris. And that would blow off. Algae would adhere to the surface and not blow off. So time for a couple more questions. How much water movement/circulation do you have in the tank? How often and how much water do you change out for WC's weekly? Lastly when you do WC's do you run your hand lightly through you plants lightly dislodging any built up detris before doing a WC?

 

[Julianciraco]

Umm I don't know the exact turn over rate of my filter but it adds pretty good flow to my tank.
I do around 50% WC weekly, I used to do about 30% 2 times a week but that was before this semester started and me not coming home with enough time to do one. I usually take the vaccum/python and wave it around the plants but this brown thing came up last week, before that there wasn't any, there's much less now since I tried to suck it all out of the tank but it still has some.

 

[Julianciraco]

Bump!!!

 

[Rivercats]

Eventually if you keep dislodging the detris from the plants it will all clear but you may have to be slightly heavy handed (use your hand before starting the WC) when waving through the plants. I only do 50% WC's weekly so that is adequate. Also be mindful not to overfeed as that can be a big contributor to this problem.

Something else to think about is depending on how big the tank is you might want to consider getting one of these small powerhead to add more water current through the tank.... http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+4586+23591&pcatid=23591. I use these little guys and they work great.

 

[Julianciraco]

Okay so keep cleaning the plants off. I got some nerite snails as you recommended Monday, I got 5 small ones and my glass is already free of algae. I actually was thinking of a little power head. My friend has a saltwater tank with a really strong one, I might be able to get the little old one he had since he doesn't use it.
The problem is that I clean it off with my hand, take it with th net and so WC but it shoots back up I'm a matter of like 3 days :/

 

[Rivercats]

When you have a day with some time I think your going to have to try stirring up the tank really well then doing a 50% WC. Then in about 4 hours do the same thing. Something is causing a buildup and I think lack of enough water current in the tank is partly to blame. Other than that I don't know what to tell you.